At war with liberal interventionism

By Philip Stephens

Financial Times

Published: November 19 2004

The course
of US foreign policy over coming years will be set by the outcome of
a struggle between liberal interventionism and hard-headed realism -
between George W. Bush's embrace of democratic transformation in the
Middle East and the harsher strategic truths confronting America's
power in the region.

Mr Bush started out as a realist. Insofar as he was closely
interested in international relations before the 2000 election, his
prospectus emphasised the robust deployment of American power in the
national self-interest and a withdrawal from nation-building and
humanitarian entanglements. Even after September 11 2001, there was
a suspicion that the administration's conversion to the
neo-conservative cause was as much rhetorical as real, a cloak under
which to complete unfinished business in Iraq.

No longer. Since his November 2 re-election, the president has
removed the doubts. During his White House press conference with
Tony Blair last week, Mr Bush returned again and again to the spread
of freedom as the centrepiece of US foreign policy from Afghanistan
to Palestine. The words were deliberate and unmistakeable: "The
reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war
with each other. I've got great faith in democracies to promote
peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way
forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote
democracy."

If there was any lingering uncertainty, Mr Bush dispelled it with
the appointment of Condoleezza Rice to that bastion of pragmatism,
the State Department. Ms Rice, too, was once a realist - a believer
in the theory of international relations that says power is all that
matters as nations pursue their selfish national interest. She cut
her foreign policy teeth under the tutelage of Brent Scowcroft, who,
as national security adviser to the first president Bush, was as
tough-minded a pragmatist as any since Henry Kiss- inger. But that
was before the twin towers fell and the present administration set
off on the road to Baghdad.

Mr Bush's advocacy of democratic transformation explains the
strength of his relationship with Mr Blair. The British prime
minister has long believed that it is the duty of the west to do
good in the world. In Mr Blair's words at the White House: "I think
what we are learning is that there is not stability of any long-term
kind without democratic rights for free people to decide their
government." The promotion of freedom, he believes, should be a
joint project to bind the wounds of the transatlantic alliance. As
he put it in a speech this week at London's Mansion House:
"Democracy is the meeting point for Europe and America." France's
Jacques Chirac, a European realist, begs to differ.

In Mr Blair's view, their common democratic cause transcends the
natural political divide between a Republican president in
Washington and a Labour prime minister in London. The political
labels are different but, watching the two men, it almost seems as
if Woodrow Wilson had met William Gladstone.

This is a view of the world with which I instinctively agree. The
historical experience of Europeans speaks to the gruesome
consequences of totalitarian regimes and balance-of-power politics.
As much as I admire the international order created after the second
world war, the central premise that states usurp the rights of
citizens is no longer sustainable.

Realism in foreign policy can claim few recent successes. Support
for the Taliban in Afghanistan and eyes-closed pragmatism towards
Saudi Arabia brought us Osama bin Laden. Realism turned its back on
Pakistan's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It also
armed Saddam Hussein against Iran. Dealing with the despots has not
made us safer.

Yet there is liberal interventionism and liberal interventionism.
Mr Blair seemed to acknowledge this when he assured his Mansion
House audience: "I am not, repeat not, advocating a series of
military solutions to achieve it [democracy]." The purpose was to
draw a distinction with the neo-conservatives in Washington. Liberal
foreign policies can too often turn into armed missions - the cause
is noble so any means are justified.

This is the deep divide between a European liberalism that says
democracy should be spread through the projection on to the
international stage of the rule of law, by the adoption of shared
norms and the promotion of multilateral institutions, and a
neo-conservatism that calls for America's unparalleled power to be
deployed to order nations to "democratise or else".

Nor can liberalism entirely escape the real world. It is
inevitably adulterated by realism. Thus, while Mr Bush has declared
(prematurely) the triumph of democracy in Afghanistan, his
administration simultaneously backs the ruling despot in
neighbouring Uzbekistan. Liberties are being curtailed rather than
extended in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Democracy is an anathema in
China. Yet Mr Bush boasts of closer relationships with Moscow and
Beijing than any of his predecessors. Meanwhile, to demand that
Palestinians embrace democracy as the price of US engagement in the
Middle East seems a suspiciously convenient way to avoid putting any
pressure on the Israeli government.

I doubt such contradictions much worry Mr Bush. But there is a
more immediate challenge to the neo-conservative mission. Neither Mr
Bush's election victory nor the military pacification of Falluja has
dispelled the deep pessimism in Washington about the prospects for a
transition to democracy in Iraq. The gloom is not the preserve of
disappointed Democrats. Republican realists, still a force in Mr
Bush's party, are openly sceptical about the chances of defeating
the current insurgency. Democracy is not the answer for Sunnis
fighting to regain a monopoly on power in Iraq.

The visitor to Washington is struck by how many supporters of the
administration have come to see the creation of a democratic Iraq as
an unattainable dream. The discussion has turned to damage
limitation. The realists' case - that military victory is impossible
and that US voters have neither the will nor the patience for a
long-term US occupation - has increasing resonance.

Mr Bush insists otherwise. But his policy is Iraq has become an
act of faith. The president is discovering his own truth. Democracy
and war are an unhappy mix.